


Poltergeist

by clockwork_spider



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Bittersweet, Casual conversation on sex and murder, Dark Humor, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Possession, References to Drug Dealing, Sentimental, ghost au, not in the sexy way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 08:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9811619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockwork_spider/pseuds/clockwork_spider
Summary: The first clue Dennis got on why his apartment was so cheap came on the bathroom mirror.“DIE” it read, in angry blood red letters.“Well then,” Dennis thought.“My name is Dennis, it’s very nice to meet you,” he said out loud. He wasn’t sure whatever haunted the house was even sentient, it certainly wasn’t friendly, but it never hurt to be polite.





	1. Chapter 1

The first clue Dennis got on why his apartment was so cheap came from the bathroom mirror.

“DIE” it read, in angry blood red letters.

“Well then,” Dennis thought.

“My name is Dennis, it’s very nice to meet you,” he said out loud. He wasn’t sure whatever haunted the house was even sentient, it certainly wasn’t friendly, but it never hurt to be polite.

The next day, he bought an Ouija board. 

* * *

It turned out that he didn’t need the Ouija board after all. 

The ghost looked young. No older than 16. The sight of it breaks his heart a little, where he didn’t know he had one.

It smiled and said, “I’m gonna gut you like a fish and put you on display right here in this bathroom.”

And all Dennis could think of was the number of apartments he was rejected from, the apologetic smiles and the little record in his pocket. And he thought _I don’t want to lose this._ He thought _I can’t._

So Dennis said, “Would you like to see a card trick first?”

He performed over two mugs of coffee, cheap instant shit but carefully made. The sweet aroma hung in the air as he held out a card and asked: “was it the Starve Venom Dragon?”

* * *

“You ever plan to just finish the job? I can help you if you don’t have the guts,” the ghost whispered beside his ear.

Hearing that was, somehow, surprisingly comforting. It was, ironically, the closest thing he can afford to real counseling.

“Nah,” Dennis let out a little laugh, putting the razor away, “I’m just weighing my options.”

“You want to die?” The ghost asked.

“No,” the magician shook his head, “but living is pretty exhausting sometimes.”

“This is unfair,” the ghost, presumably displeased, threw a roll of toilet paper at Dennis’s head, which bounced off and unraveled itself on the tiled floor pathetically, “you’re alive and you’re not even enjoying it.”

At that moment, Dennis felt immense empathy with the roll of toilet paper on the ground.

Dennis shrugged, “Sorry. Kind of silly, I know.”

“What do you do out there?” the ghost asked.

Dennis shrugs, “life stuff. I work, mostly.”

“And here I thought you liked your job.”

“It gets me paid,” he shrugged. He remembered a time when he was younger, back when he was the same age as Yuri, when he looked at the television screen and saw the performance of Sakaki Yusho. He remembered wild dreams of the spotlight of Broadway, of Hollywood. He remembered the dim light of the bar, the dull glint of pistols, bills and bags passed from under the counter, the dampness of hot, drunken breath against his neck.

“I wanted to be a Pro-Duelist,” said Yuri, “back when I was alive.“

“Like, with the cardgame?” Dennis asked.

“Yeah,” the ghost nodded.

Dennis let out a chuckle, and he thought his dreams were ridiculous. This, of course, earned him a slam against the wall and a shattered cologne bottle. The smell of suffocating sweetness spread across the room.

“Haha, sorry, sorry,” he caught his breath, “I just, didn’t expect to hear that, I suppose. Not a typical career choice.”

“Hey,” Dennis laughed against the ceramic tiles, he could see Yuri in the reflection, standing over him, “let’s go out somewhere, together. There gotta be a Tournament happening somewhere in town. Maybe get dinner after?”

“I can’t leave this house,” said Yuri.

“That’d be a problem, wouldn’t it?” Dennis picked himself up from the floor, “how ‘bout if you possess me?”

“I thought you didn’t want to die.”

“Wait, would that kill me?”

“No, but how would you know I wouldn’t leap out the window in your body?”

“Well, you haven’t killed me yet,” Dennis brushed himself off and re-rolled the toilet paper, using some of it to soak the cologne. He wondered, briefly, if it’ll last if he put it in a zip-lock bag. He’d just have to carry a piece of toilet paper in his pocket every time he goes to work.

“‘Sides,” he smiled, a row of straight white teeth, “there are things more interesting than murder out there.”

“Yeah,” the ghost said, “I guess there are.” Yuri had the widest grin on its face, and through the mirror reflection, Dennis could see that he was beautiful. 


	2. Chapter 2

The apartment was very cold.

It was cold when he died. That was what he thought as his blood drained itself from his body onto the pristine ceramic tiles, _it was so cold._

 _He_ was warm. His body was warm when Yuri wrapped his spectral hands around his throat and _squeezed_ until he stopped breathing, then he too became cold.

And then they took their bodies, and covered the blood with a layer of new paint. And soon it was just Yuri, alone in the apartment through the winter.

It was cold.

* * *

Dennis was warm.

He was covered in warm colours, with his eccentric orange jacket and carrot hair.

He said “would you like to see a card trick?” and made them two cups of coffee. Neither of them drank. Yuri couldn’t, and Dennis must have chosen not to. But the coffee was warm, and Yuri felt the aroma of it curling around him.

His body, too, was warm.

As Yuri felt the rush of blood in Dennis’s veins, he realized that he had forgotten what warmth felt like. The sensation of breathing, inhale, exhale.

Dennis was so warm.

Gingerly, he flexed the long fingers, the spindly limbs.

“What do you want to eat?“ Dennis had asked, moments before, and Yuri told him he hasn’t decided.

“I sort of want a Big Mac,” he said aloud to the empty apartment. It was Dennis’s voice that came out.

The apartment was warm.

* * *

Yuri could have sworn the Big Macs have gotten smaller.

The taste, however, didn’t change much.

“Young man, are you okay?” Some nosy old lady looked at him with concern.

The buns were flat, and a bit soggy, the burger looked thinner than the photo, the lettuce threatened to spill all over the floor.

He couldn’t finish it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: NSFW but not in a sexy way, casual conversation on sex, mention of age gap, no sex happens

“Hey Dennis.”

“Hm?”

“What does sex feel like?”

Dennis choked on his coffee.

“What?!?”

“I’ve seen you take out condoms. So you are having sex.”

Dennis buried his face in his hand with a mortified whimper.

“Well? What’s it like?”

“Right… you’re. Well,” Of course. Based on Yuri’s appearance, he must have been a teenager when he was murdered. It’d only make sense for him to be curious.

“Yes, yes, I got murdered before ever getting laid. Doesn’t mean I’m not curious.”

“Just for my information, When were you born?”

“1996.”

“Hah…” Dennis blinked and let out a surprised laugh.

“What?”

“No, it’s just, we’re the same age.”

“…It’s been that long?” Yuri frowned, “gross, I’m old.”

“I take offence to that.”

“Well, I still don’t get to have sex or drink alcohol.“

“Neither of those are as good as they make it out to be, to be honest. Mostly it washes out every other thought while you’re at it, and then you regret it a little the next day.”

“Hm,” Yuri said. And there was something lingering in the air. A beat of silence followed.

“Would you like to try?” Dennis asked.

“With you? I appreciate your enthusiasm but my body has rotted by now.”

“No! That’s not…!” Dennis sighed, "I meant, we could go to the bar, I could pick up one of my regulars, and you can possess me.”

“In your body?”

“Yeah.”

A longer period of silence followed.

“Ew, that’s really gross, Dennis.”

“Hey!” Dennis was, frankly, quite offended. “You’re the one who keeps smearing my bathroom in blood when I shower! I don’t want to be called gross by you!”

“That’s different. Those are my own blood from back when I died,” the ghost said dryly.

Dennis could imagine Yuri crossing his arms and tossing his head sideways. He’ didn’t know how to react to that at all.

“I don’t want to have sex with a stranger. Maybe I can just jack off in your body or something,” said Yuri.

“That’d be really weird…”

“Says the person who asked if I wanted to have sex in your body with complete strangers.”

“This is too awkward, maybe I can just search up some pornography for you from the internet.” Dennis buried his face in his hands and groaned.

“No. I’ve seen porn. I don’t like it. It’s not…”

“Real?”

“I don’t want to watch other people have sex…” the voice trailed off and left something hanging in the air.

Dennis understood.

“Hey, you never told me your birthday earlier,” he asked instead.

“Who cares, I’m dead.”

“But you were born, at some point?”

“No shit.”

“Was there a date?“

“It’s October 31st, Halloween.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“No, you’re pulling my legs here. That can’t be real. A ghost born on Halloween?”

“You asked!” The coffee mug was lifted from the table and knocked softly on Dennis’s head.

“Haha, okay, okay! That’s next week! We’ll buy a cake. You’ll be turning 21.”

“Tsk, shut up I’m not that old.”

“I suppose we could light 17 candles too. You can blow all of them out instantly with your ghostly power.”

There was a short pause, before a stream of eerie giggles echoed through the air, resounding through every corner of the apartment. Dennis could feel a pair of cold hands, wrapping themselves around him, strands of hair tickled against his cheek. Faintly, he smelt the scent of earth and decay.

It was a hug from Yuri.

“I like chocolate, dark forest,” Yuri’s whispered, his voice coming from beside Dennis’s left ear.

“That’s doable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should clarify… To Dennis, his suggestion of casual sex with his acquaintances is totally sensible. It’ll be Yuri, using Dennis’s corporeal form to experiencing something he never got to experience while being alive, with people Dennis already know. Yuri commented “that’s gross” because he wouldn’t know those people. They’d be total strangers to him.
> 
> Dennis thinks it’d be “weird” for Yuri to masturbate in his body because… that’d be too personal. It’d be like Yuri giving him a handjob? And that’s kind of weird on every account because he really doesn’t want to take advantage of Yuri’s situation.
> 
> I don’t particularly think their relationship is really romantic or platonic in this AU. It’s more like… seeing yourself in another person and living through them. At the same time… this really isn’t about sex. It’s more about wanting an experience which Yuri felt like was robbed of him when he died. It’s about wanting to know what it would have been like if he’s still alive.


	4. Chapter 4

Dennis goes to work every evening, and return upon sunrise.

And while Dennis went out to do “life stuff”, Yuri became increasingly aware of the numbers of hours in one night.

It’s funny, he had haunted the place for years before Dennis came along. He never felt the passage of time until now, until there’s something to look forward to.

“Bring me to work, I’m bored,” Yuri once prompted.

Dennis just smiled and shook his head. “Work’s not as much fun as you think it is.”

 

* * *

 

There were days, perhaps one or two, where Dennis came back with bruises.

Once, Yuri ran his finger along one of them as Dennis came out from the shower.

Dennis flinched.

“Stop that, it’s really uncomfortable,” Dennis chastised, but there was no bite to his words.

“Who did this? Bring them home, I’ll kill them,” Yuri offered.

Dennis chuckled and said “thanks” in that absent-minded way of his, but he never gave a name, nor did he ever bring anyone home.

 

* * *

 

“Why are you doing this?” Yuri asked one day, over a mug of hot coffee he couldn’t really drink. (He likes holding onto it while it’s still warm.)

“What, the coffee?”

“Yes, the coffee. No, this.” He waved his mug in the air, coffee sloshing dangerously. "Me. Letting me possess you. Making me coffee. What’s your angle?”

“Maybe I like you,"

“If you’d let anyone you like possess your body then I should be worried.”

“I didn’t want to move, you know? I can’t exactly afford anywhere else. Inflation’s a thing and rent’s crazy high nowadays. Plus I got a criminal record so folks don’t want me around.”

“Seriously?”

“Well…” He had this private little smile on his face, eyes on the glass counter, where Yuri’s reflection laid, “I guess I like… seeing you happy. Not a lot of happy folks around nowadays, ya know?” 

 

* * *

 

Somedays, Dennis would return just to lay on the sofa and stares at the ceiling, TV playing in the background and he’s not even watching. If that wasn't the most pathetic thing Yuri had ever witnessed in his unlife, he didn’t know what is.

“Hey Dennis, talk to me.”

“Not now, Yuri, I’m a bit tired,” he said, and he wasn’t even sleeping, just staring at the ceiling.

It’s awfully unfair, that Dennis got to be alive, and he’s not even happy.

_“I wanted to be on Broadway,” Dennis once said, “I saw Wicked once, when I was 13, saved up for a year for it. I wanted to play Fierro.”_

_“You’re more of a Galinda.”_

_“I don’t think I’d pass that audition,” Dennis laughed._

_"It’s not like you’ve ever passed an audition for Fierro either" went unsaid._

_“Should have gone to film school.”_

_“Yeah, should have,” Dennis said, and poured himself another cup of coffee._

Sometimes Yuri thinks about what it’d be like if he was never murdered. He’d have made it as a professional duelist. He’d have been formidable. He was robbed of that.

He’d have been happy if he was still alive, or so he thought.

And perhaps the thing that was killing Dennis wasn’t the fact that his dream was unobtainable, but that he never stopped dreaming.

 _“I want to make you happy,”_ Dennis had said.

“I want you to be happy, Dennis,” Yuri said. He wanted to make Dennis happy. He didn’t know how to make Dennis happy.

Dennis smiled like it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard, “I am happy, Yuri,” and lied through his teeth.


	5. Chapter 5

_Happy birthday dear Yuri_

_Happy birthday to you!_

When Yuri blew out the 17 candles, the room went pitch black. And for a fraction of a second, as the candlelight flicked out, Dennis saw Yuri’s face as how he’s suppose to look, clean and clear of blood and lacerations.

A wide smile and bright eyes. He was the most radiant thing Dennis had ever seen.

And as Yuri watched the sunrise, he raised his arm towards the circle of light on the horizon. Everything was brighter through Dennis’s eyes, and the sun looked close enough to reach.

“Hey Dennis,” He felt the cool autumn wind brushing against Dennis’s arm,“It’s the sunrise!”  

* * *

Dennis was dying.

It was apparent from the circles under his eyes. He was losing weight and colour. He smiled more, but lost the sprint in his steps.

Yuri could feel it, the limbs weighing heavier and heavier each and every time he eases himself into Dennis’s body. Every time, he could feel the body growing a little colder.

“You should get that checked out,” Yuri said.

But Dennis was perfectly healthy, and this wasn’t something the doctors could fix.

When Dennis’s teeth bit into the perfect red apple, and it made the perfect crunch, when Yuri tasted the sweetness through Dennis’s tongue, he knew he was living on borrowed time.


	6. Chapter 6

“Dennis, do you believe in the afterlife?”

“Like heaven or hell? Nah. That’s too scary to think about.”

“What, cause you’ll be going to hell?”

“That’s a bit harsh. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, but I’m not like… a serial killer or anything. So uh… who knows, eh? Anyway, I reckon if there’s a proper afterlife, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Maybe I got kicked out of both.”

“Shit.”

“I think I’m here because I want to be, though. I remember feeling my blood drain from my body and thinking ‘It’s not fair,’ you know, I didn’t want to die. I wasn’t ready to leave. There were so many things I never got to do.”

“I’m sorry.” Dennis stared off at the city lights, shining like the stars. “If I were a different person, perhaps I can be who you wanted to be.”

There was a pause.

“I like the idea of reincarnation,” said Yuri.

“What? Like the Buddhist one?”

“No, like in Inuyasha. I don’t want to be reborn as a slug or something. That’d be gross.”

Dennis couldn’t help but laugh until he’s out of breath. “But Yuri! We can meet again as slugs in our next life, and we can spend our short slug life together.”

“Gross.”

“I think it’s romantic.”

“There’s nothing romantic about slugs.”

“You hurt my reincarnated slug feelings, Yuri.”

“You’re not a slug, and if you were, then you wouldn’t have feelings.”

“Harsh,” Dennis huffed. 

“I heard about the offer,” said Yuri. Apparently, not everyone Dennis meet from work is illegal. Apparently, sometimes directors visit seedy bars for inspiration. 

“It’s not Broadway.”

“It’s a role.”

“It’s in New York. I’ll have to move.”

“Then move.”

“I didn’t plan on it,” Dennis said, he didn’t look in Yuri’s general direction. 

“How dare you?” An echo accompanied Yuri’s voice, his form suddenly flickered into view.

**“ _How dare you?_ ”**

And suddenly, Dennis found himself slammed against the balcony railing, painfully aware of the height and his mortality.

“I want to be alive! I thought that if I get to live, then I get to be happy. I want you to be happy, Dennis. It’s not fair. It’s not…”

Drops of water, cool on Dennis’s cheeks.

It was raining.

“I don’t want to die.” Yuri’s voice broke, cracked, shattered. “I don’t want to die.”

“I want you to _live_.”

The autumn rain pattered on, soaking their bones.

It was cold.

“I don’t want to leave you,” said Dennis.

“Thank you,” Yuri’s voice echoed beside Dennis’s ear. Dennis could feel Yuri’s arms around him, a touch of familiar coldness that wasn’t from the rain. “For letting me feel alive.”

In the horizon, the sun had begun to rise.

“I’ll take the job. I’ll be the best damn opening they’ve ever seen.” Dennis promised.

“And I’ll make it to Broadway. I’ll perform by the side of Sakaki Yushou.”

"The audience will love you. They’ll be screaming your name,” said Yuri.

“I’ll audition for Wicked, and they’ll give me the role of Fierro. No. Galinda.”

“You’ll be the best Galinda. They’ll never hire another.”

“I’ll live, and keep living, and I’ll be happy.”

“You better be.” Yuri was laughing, and in the first crack of dawn, he was radiant.

“And reincarnation, I’ll believe in that too!” Dennis was shouting at this point. “Let’s meet again, even if one of us is a slug.”

“I’ll slug you in our next lives,” Yuri chuckled.

The sun rose, the sky cleared.

The first ray of light in the morning was always warm.

* * *

**Epilogue**

“Say, Yuri, do you believe in reincarnation?” Dennis asked, staring at the last ray of evening sun.

“What?” The shorter duelist had an expression caught between amused and unimpressed.

“I don’t know, just, do you think we would have known each other in our past-lives?”

“Gross,” Yuri made a face, punching Dennis lightly on the arm before lacing their fingers together.

“Harsh,” Dennis laughed.

Dennis’s hands, as always, were warm.


End file.
